


Pluck Out the Heart of My Mystery

by jesterlady



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Chance Meetings, Crossover, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-19
Updated: 2010-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-22 01:31:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterlady/pseuds/jesterlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's in a town called Sunnydale.  He's joined at the bar by a woman who calls herself Anyanka.  Set in SPN S5 and early BTVS S7.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pluck Out the Heart of My Mystery

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own BTVS or SPN. The title is by William Shakespeare  
> A/N: This is something I could easily see making a longer fic out of, but I'm leaving it here for now and maybe someday, I'll come back to it.

“I think I like it here,” Dean said loudly, throwing back the last of his beer. Sam and Castiel looked at each other and said nothing. “I mean it,” Dean continued enthusiastically, “who doesn’t love a town crawling with demons and where the only bar is also the local teen hangout?”

“Dean, this is not a good place to be,” Castiel said urgently. “We have many tasks to perform before we will be ready to defeat our adversary.”

“Cas is right,” Sam said. “We did a good job here, now let’s get going.”

“I’m gonna have one more,” Dean said stubbornly. “You two go on ahead. I spy someone who might like a little lesson in pool.”

His companions sighed, but left as if they knew arguing wouldn’t get them anyplace.

Dean ordered another beer and tapped his fingers on the bar while he waited.

“It’s not the only place to acquire alcohol,” said a voice from his right. Dean turned to see a brunette slip onto the bar stool next to him.

“Is that right?”

“You could try Willy’s,” she said. “Of course, it’s a demon bar, so you’d have to leave the shotgun outside.”

“Excuse me?” Dean asked incredulously.

“I heard you speaking about demons,” she said bluntly, “and I can smell an angel from miles away. We generally don’t like to cross paths, so I’m glad he left.”

“Cas is a good guy,” Dean muttered, while his brain took in the information. “And just who or what are you?”

“Excellent questions,” she said, taking a sip of her own drink. “And if I had all the answers I wouldn’t be in this town at all or have reacquired my human emotions.”

“Reacquired?”

“Oh yes. I started out with them, of course, but then when I accepted D’Hoffryn’s offer, they naturally faded. Carnage is very desensitizing. Anyway, when I became human again, naturally, they all came flooding back. Now that I’m not human, I imagine they’ll go away eventually. That’s what I’m counting on anyway.”

“You’re not human, so what are you?” Dean kept one hand close to his pocket where he could get to his gun if he needed it. But he had to say, it had been a long time since he’d met someone so refreshingly stark.

“I’m a vengeance demon and I’m on call, so you’ll excuse me if I have to go suddenly.”

“On call?”

“Yeah, I’m covering for my friend Hallie. She had this party she really wanted to go to. I was invited too, but I don’t enjoy eviscerations as much as I used to, so I did the friend thing.”

“Show me your true form,” Dean said, wanting to see if she was really a demon, which would be a shame since he was actually enjoying this conversation.

“I may be truthful,” she said, “but I’m not stupid. Whatever those inane Scoobies may think. How many centuries do you think I would survive if I just showed everyone my true face?”

“How old are you?”

“Eleven thousand and twenty three. But when you’ve gone through as many changes as I have, you start to wonder if age has anything to do with anything. I was twenty three when I became a vengeance demon and then three years ago I became human again and now I’m a demon. So does that make me twenty three, three, or six months old?”

“I…don’t know.”

“But you know a lot about demons, or at least, you think you do. You’ve been hunting them all your life. And now you’re here, at the Hellmouth itself.”

“Hellmouth?”

“Why else do you think this place has demons up the kazoo? That’s a weird expression,” she confided, “but I heard Xander using it, so it must be useful to the people of this time period.”

“Xander?”

“My ex. We won’t go into that particular problem if you don’t mind. Vengeance on him would be nice, but my human morals decided going to a counselor would be better. We meet twice a week.”

“The counselor and you?” Dean was getting images in his head of all the various demons he’d met going to counseling. Or he was drinking too much.

“Yes, it’s to reign in my grief.”

“Over being dumped?”

“Let’s not get too personal,” she said, laughing somewhat bitterly. “The last time that happened I got dumped. My name’s Anya, by the way, or Anyanka if you want to go the demon route.”

“Dean,” he answered, automatically putting his hand out. She shook it firmly.

“Well, Dean, there’s a lot of hunting to do here in Sunnydale. But you might want to steer clear of Buffy. She’s the Slayer and she’s very territorial and then if you get her mad, you’ve got Spike to deal with, and the Scoobies and Giles’ brain and books and it all gets very apocalyptic when really you should all be on the same side.”

“Slayers and hunters?” Dean said, still trying to grasp a hold of this situation.

“Yes, I’ve tried to explain hunters to them before, but after the shrimp dimension explanation they don’t seem to take anything I say seriously. Oh wait, they didn’t before that. Anyway, they think they know so much about the supernatural.”

“The Slayer and the Scoobies?”

“Yes.” She beamed at him as if she’d just imparted some ancient wisdom.

Dean shook his head.

“I think I’m gonna head back to the motel,” he said finally. “My friends will be looking for me.”

“Here’s my card,” she said, digging through her purse. “I usually work strictly for scorned women, but sometimes men need vengeance too. And you’ve got a long fight ahead of you, especially if Giles’ prophecy is right.”

“What prophecy?”

“About the ultimate apocalypse. Not the normal garden variety, we get those about once a week here, but at least with those no one usually dies.”

“Dying’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Dean said grimly.

“So Buffy likes to say,” Anya said, rolling her eyes. “I mean, I know that the second time she died was really hard and everything, but she’s not the only one.”

“You know what,” Dean said, as he looked at her card carefully. “I might just stick around for a few days.”

“You should,” Anya said and then she looked around as if she’d heard something. “Sorry, gotta run. That girl just got the whole I-slept-with-your-best-friend story. Not pretty, but I know, maybe I’ll make him sleep with his best friend. That would teach him…” And she left, mumbling about possible punishments while Dean stared after her, wondering why he hadn’t tried to shoot her or at least figure out what the hell was going on.

He was on his way out the door and he saw her talking to a young woman, he caught the words ‘I wish’ and then Anya’s face changed to a demonic mask.

Slightly more noticeable than just black eyes.

He slipped his hand into his jacket for his gun and then she looked up and winked at him. He took his hand back out again. Yeah, definitely time to stick around and see what else could happen. A hunt, a good time, more knowledge which would keep Sam happy. And Castiel could use a good vacation, the angel was looking more haggard every day. The Hellmouth was as good a place as any.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Pluck Out the Heart of My Mystery](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5701774) by [exmanhater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater)




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